Pandemonium
by ShadowJaySmith
Summary: Pacific Rim story, OC/OC, happens many years after the first Kaiju war. Avery is a lonely soul, she can't let people in. She goes into the Jaeger program, seeking refuge from her memories, and to kick Kaiju ass. Her superiors force her to pilot with Rory, a quiet man, who might just be running away as fast as she is. Sorry, I'm really bad at summaries, it's better than it sounds.


...

_She hears, yelling, and a small child crying, she closes her large green eyes, trying to find just one small moment of peace, as she looks up at the slowly fading stars, it was the darkest dawn she'd ever seen._

_"Akari!" She turns around at the sound of her name, and smiles as her little brother, Saiki, runs towards her, but then sees his expression, and notices he's crying. She kneels down and hugs him as he runs into her arms._

_"Sai, what is it? What's wrong?" she looks at him, her large eyes filled with concern, "Sai..." her voice was slowly rising, seeing how his face is red on one cheek, but not on the other, "Did he hit you again?"_

_"I just went to get a apple..." she looked at her brother, with his tear filled eyes, stomach empty, and a father filled with anger, lone, and selfishness._

_"Sai, it's okay I'll go talk to hi—" The ground shook beneath their feet and her brother's eyes grew wide. She turned around, and a monster, the size of a five story building, charging through Boston Harbor. It was covered in barnacles and seaweed, with a long, spiked tail, and when it roared, blue acid flew out and melted part of the John Hancock Building. "Sai," she turned around to look at him and held his shoulders so he looked into her eyes. "Get to the shelter, just like we practiced with mom, okay, run! I'm right behind you!"_

_She lied._

_She ran to the closest house, and did a cannonball through the window, into the kitchen. The little boy, Saiki, didn't look back at the monster, or to make sure his sister was behind him, he just ran as fast as his small legs could carry him._

_Once inside the kitchen, Akari grabbed all the knives that were hanging on the wall, and fit them neatly in the loops of her belt, which was specifically made for knives. Her mother had bought it for her on her 13__th__ birthday, incase of a situation like this. Her mother had been a Jaeger pilot, and had found evidence that there was another breach, also in the Pacific Ocean, but why it was in Boston, on the other side of the continent, was unknown to her, or anyone, for that matter._

Maybe they're getting smarter._ Akari looked around, suddenly struck with an idea_, _if they were getting smarter, maybe they were trying to think like humans. She blinked,_ where would I go if I were them?

Where the people are going.

_Her eyes widened, and she sprinted to the shelter only thinking of one person, a kid actually, the one whose sworn protector she was, she had made herself swear after her mother had died, and left her with a ex-alcoholic, who would soon return to his old ways._

She gasped, and awoke to tears on her face and a man sitting across her with a clipboard.

"Akari," he said her name, and she flinched, she didn't like people calling her that, she preferred to go by Avery, her middle name. Going by Akari just made her think of her mother, who named her that, and of her brother who called her that. "I'm sorry, I mean, _Avery_, You are doing quite well. Your scores are higher than those of Mai." Her head jerked up to the sound of her mother's name. "It's about time you started to train in a real Jaeger."

...

Avery still couldn't believe how nice the facilities are here. The floors were always clean, the windows, always the same dank, gray-blue mugg as the sky and serenity of the quiet that falls of the city, as they watch above from a tall skyscraper. She lives on the top floor of the tallest skyscraper in the world, now you may think that this is a perfect opportunity for Kaiju to attack them, and kill every Jaeger pilot to ever train here, but it's protected by a force field.

The apartments take up a full floor, but for security reasons, there's a door across the elevator when you reach the floor, so people can't just walk into their houses. The door flew open just as she came off the elevator, and her roommate, Stephanie, jumped out grabbed her arm and pulled her into the living room.

"Kid, if you don't login to your email in less than negative five seconds I _will_ kill you." She said, bouncing on the balls of her feet, while holding her hands together.

"Alright, alright!" She says, and smiles. Steph always seems to bring out the best in her, kind of like Sai did. She feels a momentary sadness, and remembers that Steph doesn't know about her past. She looks her roommate, and raises her eyebrows, then Steph remembers to turn away as she types in her password, even though Steph could hack it in a heartbeat.

The government didn't have enough money to create state-of-the-art computers, so they took old gaming systems, and modified them. Avery and Steph have a X-box, that has Wii remotes, and is able to be used from an iPad so Steph can magnify things on a large screen, when investigating a new product of a Kaiju.

Sadly, Steph is a scientist, so Avery would probably be stuck with some random-ass person to drift with. She wasn't really looking forward to that part of piloting.

When her email opens, her mouth dropped to the floor, she was scheduled to start training in a Jaeger, _tomorrow._

"Oh. My. Gosh." By this time, most people had given up on the idea of god, but Steph was always respectful of other's ideas, her parents had been in Boston, they'd believed in him, when the Kaiju attacked, and they'd died, not making it to the shelter. Avery winced, she couldn't help it, her soul just wasn't in it. "What's wrong, Avery?"

"Nothing. It's nothing, really." She pauses, considering what her mom had talked to her about, when she'd been seven. She'd said,

_"Akari, sweetheart, you have to be nicer to people." Mai smiled down at her daughter._

_"He was being mean to Saiki." Akari crossed her arms, pouting._

_"No, honey, that's not what I'm talking about. You don't let people help you." She squatted in front of the girl, holding her shoulders._

_"I don't need help. I have you." She said, looking at the ground._

_"That's very nice of you, sweetheart," her mother smiled sadly, rubbing her daughter's shoulders, "but I may not always be here for you." Akari looked up from the ground, her mouth was open in surprise, and her mother continued, "You need to learn to let people in, you can't just keep them out, your father learned that, he was just like you."_

_"But you helped him, right?" Akari looked at her mother with these large green eyes, searching for an answer in her mother's._

_"Yes, yes I did. Now you'll find people all through your life, willing to help you, caring people."_

_"So... I should trust everyone?" Akari said, tilting her head._

_"No, no, no, silly, there are some very dangerous people out there, who _are_ gonna try to hurt you, and that's where you'll need to be strong." She smiled again, but it was still a sad smile._

_"Like Jason." Akari said, grinning proudly._

_"Yes like Jason, what happened that made your teacher call me, to take you home?" Mai said, while standing up, and taking her daughter's hand._

_"I punched him." Akari said simply, while her mother looked down at her, open-mouthed, "he's a bad person."_

_"That's my girl." Mai ruffled Akari's hair._

"It doesn't say who I'm piloting with, though." Avery said, coming back to reality, "I just don't want to drift with an idiot."

"I realized." Steph said, raising an eyebrow. "Come on, is there any ice cream left?" she trotted off to the kitchen, while Avery sat across the counter, on the red stool, all their stools were mismatched.

"Dude," Avery said, "we got a giant bucket of it, 'course we have some more."


End file.
